The First World War - Part 2 History File


The First World War - Part 2

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On April 24th 1915,

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British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops

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began landing on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli.

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Their aim was to knock Germany's ally Turkey out of the war.

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It was an enormous invasion force.

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By mid-afternoon on the first day, there were 8,000 Allied soldiers on the beaches.

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The Turkish force was heavily outnumbered,

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but the Turkish soldiers stood their ground.

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Their bravery allowed time for reinforcements to arrive.

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Here, as in France,

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the Allies found themselves involved in a war of trenches and stalemate.

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Cyril Lawrence was one of the Anzacs

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the Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

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He was at Gallipoli in the heat of summer, with flies and disease,

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and began to question the British commanders.

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'Daily now, the men are getting weaker.

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'If only those at home,

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'fed on lies as they are, could see how the men really are.

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'Weak as kittens, one mass of sores,

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'and yet as undaunted in spirit as ever.

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'But that spirit can't last forever,

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'and soon these English idiots

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'will have ruined one of the finest bodies of men that ever fought.'

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It was decided that the Gallipoli campaign

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was a waste of officers and men.

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In January 1916,

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with a quarter of a million men killed, wounded or missing,

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the Allies withdrew.

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At Gallipoli, Turks had fought Australians, New Zealanders and Britons.

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What had started as a European war was now something bigger

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a WORLD war.

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So many men were needed for the war

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that England and France had to recruit from their colonies.

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In Africa, newspapers called on people to join up.

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'The present war is a world war.

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'Without you, your white comrades cannot do anything.

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'Everyone who loves his country and respects the British government

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'join this war without hesitation.'

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A West African, Kande Kumara, volunteered for the French army

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and was sent to fight in France.

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'There were all kinds of nationalities.

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'There were Fulas, Karanko,

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'Yuvunkers,

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'Bombaros,

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'Zanufers, Kisae...

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'Toms, Basera,

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'and a lot more.

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'It was terrible and hard.

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'In the white man's war, you never say, "I'm thirsty."

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'You never say, "I'm hungry."

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'You fight and fight and fight

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'until your heart tells you you're afraid.'

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Over a quarter of a million black Africans were killed or wounded in the First World War,

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but their bravery failed to win the respect of either fellow soldiers or the enemy.

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'We were black and we were nothing.

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'Because of the colour of our skins, the Germans called us Boots.

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'This hurt every black man

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'because they actually underestimated us...

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'disgraced and dishonoured us.'

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The British commander was Douglas Haig.

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Many British soldiers remembered him with hatred.

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One such soldier was Fred Pearson.

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'The biggest murderer of the lot was Haig.

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'I'm very bitter always have been and always will be.

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'He lived 50 kilometres behind the lines,

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'and that's about as near as he ever got.

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'I... I don't think he knew what a trench was like.'

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Critics of Haig described soldiers like Fred Pearson

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as "lions led by donkeys".

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His defenders say casualties were no higher than those of other countries.

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They also point out that in the end he did what any general has to do

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he led his troops to victory.

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In June 1916,

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Haig planned an attack along the River Somme.

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It was to start with a massive bombardment of German positions,

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which Haig believed would destroy the German lines.

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Then the Allied soldiers would just walk across No Man's Land

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and capture the enemy's trenches.

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Kenneth McCardle was a second lieutenant from Ireland.

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Like many of the other soldiers,

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he was inspired by the number of shells and mines that he saw arriving at the front.

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'I am not addicted to boasting,

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'but I think if he could see all the guns, the grenades,

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'trench mortars and other stores,

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'if he knew how thoroughly ready we are,

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'and if he could conceive how we are longing for the day,

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'if he knew, the Kaiser would cut his losses and take poison.'

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What Haig didn't know was that the Germans had built deep dug-outs,

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which protected them from the shelling.

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On July 1st 1916,

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the British detonated the first of five massive mines planted underneath the German line.

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The British soldiers were ready to attack across No Man's Land.

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Sgt Fellowes remembered how he felt as he waited for the order to go "over the top".

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'How do you feel as you stand in a trench,

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'awaiting the whistle to blow?

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'Are you frightened? Anxious? Shaking with fear?

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'Or are you ready to go?

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'No-one is anxious to go, my friend. It's a job which must be done.

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'Discipline ensures we obey the rules,

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'but for many, their last day has come.'

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The attack was a disaster.

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KENNETH MCCARDLE: 'As we advanced,

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'German shells littered the battlefield with dead and wounded.

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'All around us and in front, men dropped or staggered about.

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'I found a sergeant and, shouting in his ear, asked where were his officers?

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'"All gone, sir", he shouted back.

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There were 57,000 British and Colonial casualties

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on the first day of the battle.

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As night fell, No Man's Land came alive

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as thousands of wounded soldiers began crawling back to the trenches.

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Only in November did Haig call off the battle.

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There were over one million casualties.

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620,000 British and French,

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and 450,000 German soldiers,

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were killed, wounded or missing.

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The Allied line had advanced by only five miles at most.

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The next year, in 1917,

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Haig planned a new advance at Passchendaele.

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He'd learnt some lessons. The British made better use of their heavy guns.

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They had more shells, aircraft and tanks.

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The troops had become more experienced and used to battle.

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On Easter Monday, the Canadians, British and South Africans

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advanced three and a half miles.

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The attack was so successful that King George V visited the battlefield.

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The fighting resumed as the wettest summer and autumn in years began.

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Haig and his commanders ordered repeated attacks

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across what was now a swamp.

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Haig didn't realise how muddy the ground had become.

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He disliked criticism or discussion,

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so none of his officers told him what it was like.

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Men would get stuck in the mud, and be found dead days later.

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Whole carts and horses disappeared without trace.

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Three months passed before Haig called off the campaign.

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Haig's forces had advanced only five miles.

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Total casualties for both sides

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half a million men killed, wounded or missing.

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The controversy surrounding Haig continues.

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Whatever his defenders may argue,

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it's hard to understand how he was prepared to accept such loss of life amongst his men.

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The trenches were like an alien world.

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It was difficult, even for the people who lived in them for months, to describe it.

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Otto Dicks was a German artist.

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He tried to describe what he saw.

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'Lice, rats, barbed wire,

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'fleas, shells,

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'bombs, underground caves,

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'corpses, blood,

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'liquor, mice,

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'cats, artillery,

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'filth, boots,

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'mortars, fire, steel.

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'That is what war is.

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'It is all the work of the devil.'

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British private, Geary, wrote about it in his own way.

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'As far as the eye could see,

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'there was a mass of black mud with shellholes filled with water.

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'Here and there, a horse's carcass sticking out.

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'Here and there, a corpse.

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'The only sign of life was a rat or two swimming about to find food.'

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For many, the stress of living in the trenches,

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and the constant bombardment, was too much.

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Different soldiers reacted in different ways.

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Some no longer believed their generals,

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and their main aim became just to stay alive.

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Frenchman Louis Barthes was one such soldier.

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HUGE EXPLOSIONS

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The French commander, Robert Nivelle,

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had a new plan to end the war.

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After a massive build-up of arms, he ordered an attack.

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This was the reaction of Louis Barthes.

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'In one night, more cannon shells were fired

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'than in one of Napoleon's campaigns.

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'These men exhausted, poorly fed,

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'stuck in the muddy trenches

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'took the order to attack with murmurs.

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'Not everybody can be a hero.'

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Nivelle's plan was to advance six miles.

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He promised that if they weren't successful in two days, he would stop.

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On the first day, the troops had moved only 600 yards.

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He didn't keep his promise. The battle went on for ten days.

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200,000 men were killed or wounded.

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Soldiers like Barthes had had enough.

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The only full-scale mutiny on the Western Front broke out.

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At first groups, then entire units, refused to re-enter the trenches.

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'Our captain arrived with a police escort.

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'He tried to speak,

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'but his first words were drowned out by the crowd.

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'Seething with rage, but powerless, he ordered a roll call.

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'A crowd of several hundred soldiers crowded around and mocked these orders.

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'For an hour, they hurled abuse at him.

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'Several shots were fired into the air.'

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The mutiny was the best-kept secret of the war.

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The Germans never found out,

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because the French soldiers defended their line while refusing to attack.

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In a way, the mutiny was a success.

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Nivelle was replaced by Petain,

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who improved living conditions and leave arrangements

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and decided to fight a defensive war until the Americans arrived.

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But the mutineers were also punished.

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Hundreds were sent to prison and 49 ringleaders were shot.

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JOLLY MUSICAL INTRODUCTION

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# Take me back to dear old Blighty

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# Put me on the train for London town

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# Take me over there... #

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Allied commanders could see that keeping up morale was important.

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# I would like to see my best girl

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# Cuddling up again we soon shall be... #

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They arranged routines so the soldiers didn't spend all their time on the front line.

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# Blighty is the place for me!

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# Take me back to dear old Blighty... #

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They operated on a rotation system.

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As well as fighting, they would also have time to rest and relax

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in areas three or four miles from the front.

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# ..I don't care! I should like to see my best girl... #

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For a few precious days, the soldiers could forget the constant bombardments,

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the sleepless nights,

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and the dirt and squalor of the trenches.

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At the beginning of 1917, the USA was still neutral.

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Britain and France were trying to get America to join the war on their side,

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but the Americans were only prepared to sell weapons and lend money to the Allies.

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Neither America, or its President, Woodrow Wilson,

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wanted anything to do with the fighting.

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In the end, it wasn't the Allies that made America join the fight,

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it was Germany.

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The Germans said they had the right to sink ships going to the enemy.

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And it didn't matter if there were neutral Americans aboard.

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The most famous ship to be sunk was the Luisitania

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in 1915.

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1,200 people were killed, and 198 of them were US citizens.

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Even then, President Wilson said the USA should remain neutral.

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Germany realised how dangerous it would be if America joined the war,

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so pulled back their U-boats.

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But by 1917, Germany was desperate.

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So they decided to cut off all supply routes to Britain

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by attacking any ship heading there.

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They gambled that Britain would be starved into surrender before the Americans joined the war.

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At the same time, a secret telegram sent by Germany to Mexico was intercepted.

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It proposed Mexico declare war against the United States.

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Their reward would be the states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

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When Woodrow Wilson read this telegram, he felt he had no choice.

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In April 1917, the USA joined the war on the Allied side.

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Wilson explained to the American people that the USA was fighting for democracy

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the right of people to choose their own government,

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as in Britain, France and the USA.

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'It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war.

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'Into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars.

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'But the right is more precious than peace,

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'and we shall fight for things that we carry nearest to our hearts.

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'The world must be made safe for democracy.'

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For Wilson, the war was being fought for very important reasons,

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but he wanted it to be "the war to end all wars",

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so he put together a series of guidelines

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that he believed would lead to a safer, democratic and peaceful world after the war.

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These guidelines were called "The 14 Points".

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In Germany and Austria, the situation for the ordinary people

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was going from bad to worse.

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Since 1916, they had suffered severe shortages of everything,

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including food.

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But for the soldiers, there was some hope.

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A revolution in October 1917 took Russia out of the war,

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so Germany no longer had to fight on two fronts.

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All their troops could be sent to the west.

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The German commander, General Ludendorff, saw that it was Germany's last chance.

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He decided to launch a massive attack on the Allies,

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which he believed would break the stalemate and win the war.

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Rudolf Binding was one of a million German soldiers

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secretly assembled along a 50-mile stretch, near to the Somme.

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'The troops are packed in positions so tight

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'that those in the front have been there for the last ten days.

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'For weeks past,

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'ammunition has been holed and holed night after night

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'to be piled in mountains round the guns.

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'All that is to be poured out on the enemy.

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'Tomorrow, there will be nothing to keep secret,

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'for then hell breaks loose.'

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At 4.40 AM on March 21st 1918,

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German artillery began firing.

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In just four hours, over a million shells

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many of them filled with gas fell on the British lines.

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Specially-trained groups of German stormtroopers,

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armed with machine guns and flamethrowers, broke through.

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Robert Coode was a message runner in the British Army.

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'All wounded have to be left.

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'It has been a nightmare and one that I do not want again.

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'He shells us all day...

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'and in the afternoon, he gives us a touch of his gas.

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'It is extraordinary in its intensity.

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'I was on the ground writhing in agony.

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'I was prepared for the finish.'

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In four days, the German army advanced 14 miles

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the greatest gain of territory since the stalemate of 1914.

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90,000 Allied soldiers were taken prisoner.

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In four months, the Germans launched many attacks on the Allied lines.

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The German plan seemed to be working.

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But the Allies had prepared their defences,

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and for every Allied trench the Germans took,

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there was another one to conquer.

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Ludendorff became more desperate

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throwing in every man he had.

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Australian Cyril Lawrence was at the battle.

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To him, all the Germans were "Fritz".

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'The other day, Fritz made 13 attacks upon our little front.

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'As usual, he came in mass.

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'At one place, seven waves, shoulder to shoulder.

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'But all they got was a devil of a hiding.

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'Our machine guns had the day of their lives.

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'They all agree that it was simply murder.

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'The bodies piled and piled up.

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'Fritz's casualties must be enormous.

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'I think it will be all over shortly.

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'It cannot go on at this rate.'

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Now it was the Allies' turn to attack.

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The German army began to pull back.

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Many of the German soldiers were starving,

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and stopped to loot food, or surrender.

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The German leaders believed if the German army couldn't win THIS battle, they couldn't win the war.

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The Kaiser was told that Germany was going to lose the war.

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The army had failed and there were problems with the navy as well.

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The navy, with its expensive ships,

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had only left port once during the whole war.

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All the sailors were bored and felt badly treated.

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In October, when everyone realised the war was coming to an end,

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the German fleet was ordered to sea to fight.

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The sailors didn't see any point in risking their lives now

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when peace was so close.

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They mutinied.

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Seaman Richard Stumpf began the war as a loyal supporter of the Kaiser.

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'Now the revolution has arrived.

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'This morning, I heard the first flutter of its wings.

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'It came like lightning.

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'It descended with one fell swoop

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'and now holds all of us in its grip.

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'Germany must get rid of the Kaiser and the war,

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'and become a real democracy.'

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The revolt spread from the ships to the docks,

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and from the docks to the streets of Germany's cities.

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The Kaiser and Ludendorff both fled abroad.

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Germany was in chaos.

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German high command asked for a ceasefire before their country was invaded,

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but the Allies demanded Germany surrender.

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The Armistice began on the 11th November 1918.

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In December 1918, Woodrow Wilson set off for the Paris Peace Conference.

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Germany looked to the President to negotiate a fair peace for them,

0:29:460:29:52

based on his 14 Points.

0:29:520:29:55

Wilson thought this was his chance to re-make the world.

0:29:550:29:59

In his 14 Points, it said that all peoples everywhere should be able to decide who should rule them.

0:29:590:30:08

He also wanted to set up an international peace-keeping organisation

0:30:080:30:13

called the League of Nations to prevent another world war.

0:30:130:30:17

Wherever he went, people turned out to welcome him.

0:30:230:30:28

In France, Italy and Britain, thousands greeted him.

0:30:280:30:31

But the leaders of the nations weren't so pleased to see Wilson.

0:30:350:30:40

Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George,

0:30:400:30:43

thought Wilson's plans would mean the end of Britain's empire.

0:30:430:30:48

The French Premier, Georges Clemenceau,

0:30:480:30:51

wanted to make sure Germany could never invade France again.

0:30:510:30:55

And he felt that Wilson's plans just wouldn't work.

0:30:550:31:00

Also at the peace talks were lots of the smaller nations.

0:31:000:31:04

They hoped that Wilson's 14 Points would mean gaining independence.

0:31:040:31:09

'Delegations from all over the world came to me to solicit the friendship of America.

0:31:100:31:17

'They told us that they were not sure they could trust anybody else.

0:31:170:31:22

'Some of them came from countries that I have, to my shame, to admit that I never heard of.'

0:31:220:31:28

Clearly, discussions between the Allies over the peace terms

0:31:280:31:33

weren't going to be easy,

0:31:330:31:36

but a solution was needed to end the chaos throughout Europe.

0:31:360:31:40

Nowhere more so than in Germany.

0:31:400:31:44

The Kaiser had gone,

0:31:440:31:46

and the continuing Allied naval blockade meant food shortages.

0:31:460:31:51

Different political groups were struggling for power.

0:31:510:31:55

People were fighting in the streets of Berlin.

0:31:550:31:59

GUNFIRE

0:31:590:32:01

Germany's new government used ex-soldiers to restore order.

0:32:040:32:09

In just a few days, in January 1919,

0:32:090:32:13

over a thousand people were killed or wounded.

0:32:130:32:17

In Paris, the peace talks were now being held behind closed doors.

0:32:230:32:29

And Wilson was giving in on one point after another.

0:32:300:32:34

A young British diplomat, Harold Nicholson, was called in to advise the leaders.

0:32:400:32:47

He had believed in Woodrow Wilson and his 14 Point plan.

0:32:470:32:51

He was angry that the President was giving in.

0:32:510:32:54

'The door opens.

0:32:580:33:00

'A grand room, with the windows open upon the garden and the sound of water from a fountain.

0:33:000:33:08

'Clemenceau, Lloyd George and President Wilson

0:33:100:33:13

'had pulled up armchairs, and crouched low over the map.

0:33:130:33:17

'It's appalling that these ignorant men should be cutting parts of the world to bits.

0:33:170:33:24

'as if they were dividing a cake.

0:33:240:33:27

'That day, there is a final revision of the frontiers of Austria.

0:33:270:33:32

'Hungary is divided up lazily...

0:33:320:33:36

'carelessly.

0:33:360:33:38

'Then another frontier.

0:33:390:33:42

'Then tea and macaroons.'

0:33:430:33:46

The treaty was signed on June 28th 1919

0:33:580:34:02

five years to the day after Austria's Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, had been shot.

0:34:020:34:09

The spot chosen for the signing was the Palace of Versailles in Paris.

0:34:090:34:15

The treaty said that Germany was guilty of starting the war,

0:34:150:34:20

and so had to pay the full cost.

0:34:200:34:23

Germany was also stripped of all its colonies,

0:34:230:34:26

and only allowed to keep a small army and navy.

0:34:260:34:30

When the German delegates were led in to sign the treaty, Harold Nicholson was there.

0:34:300:34:36

'We enter the Hall Of Mirrors.

0:34:380:34:41

'Through the door, alone and pathetic,

0:34:410:34:46

'come the two German delegates.

0:34:460:34:49

'The silence is terrifying.

0:34:510:34:54

'They keep their eye fixed away from those 2,000 staring eyes.

0:34:540:34:58

'It is almost painful.

0:35:010:35:03

'They sign.'

0:35:070:35:09

EXPLOSIONS

0:35:090:35:11

'Suddenly from the outside comes the crash of guns...

0:35:110:35:16

'thundering a salute.'

0:35:180:35:19

A treaty had been signed, but many believed it had been done too quickly,

0:35:190:35:26

and that a real peace had not been made.

0:35:260:35:29

The many different disputes over borders and territories,

0:35:330:35:37

which had contributed to the start of the war,

0:35:370:35:41

had not been solved.

0:35:410:35:43

Germany felt humiliated,

0:35:430:35:45

and resentful that they were forced to accept complete responsibility and pay such a high price.

0:35:450:35:52

It is easy to criticise the peacemakers.

0:35:560:36:00

Many now think they were trying to do an impossible task in impossible circumstances.

0:36:000:36:07

The peace didn't seem to be worth all the lives that had been lost.

0:36:100:36:15

It was not a lasting peace.

0:36:190:36:22

In September 1939, world war broke out again.

0:36:220:36:26

The children of 1919 would become the soldiers who had to fight and die in it.

0:36:310:36:37

The Great War was over.

0:37:410:37:45

On 11th November 1918, an armistice had been signed.

0:37:450:37:49

The survivors celebrated victory,

0:37:490:37:51

the return of peace and the end of bloodshed.

0:37:510:37:55

They'd left behind the nightmare of destruction of four years of war.

0:38:070:38:13

The cost of those years was beyond imagination, but somehow that cost would have to be counted.

0:38:130:38:20

And the defeated would have to pay the price of peace.

0:38:210:38:25

To the west of Paris stands the great palace of Versailles.

0:38:330:38:38

It was here that the peace treaty with Germany would be signed.

0:38:430:38:47

But before that could happen, much had to be decided.

0:38:470:38:51

In January 1919, two months after the Armistice,

0:38:580:39:02

delegates of the victorious powers arrived in Paris

0:39:020:39:06

for the peace conference to draw up terms for the defeated countries.

0:39:060:39:11

In all, the representatives of 27 nations attended that conference.

0:39:110:39:16

But of all the statesmen who came to Paris,

0:39:220:39:25

the most important were President Wilson of the United States,

0:39:250:39:30

Georges Clemenceau, the French Premier,

0:39:300:39:33

and Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain.

0:39:330:39:37

Each had different ideas about the central problem of Germany.

0:39:370:39:42

Clemenceau, like most Frenchman, knew what he wanted from the peace.

0:39:420:39:47

Revenge reparations for the damage the French had suffered

0:39:470:39:51

and guarantees that a similar war could never happen again.

0:39:510:39:55

The idea that Germany should be let off lightly was sheer madness

0:40:010:40:07

to Frenchmen who had seen the effects of the German war machine.

0:40:070:40:12

They wanted a Germany stripped of her wealth and armed forces.

0:40:120:40:17

In contrast,

0:40:300:40:31

Wilson appeared to promise a just and lasting peace, not punishment.

0:40:310:40:36

Europe acclaimed him as the great and good man from the New World.

0:40:360:40:41

His 14 Points seemed to promise a new moral order in international affairs.

0:40:450:40:51

No more secret diplomacy, reduction in armaments,

0:40:510:40:55

and a League of Nations to protect all countries from aggression.

0:40:550:40:59

He didn't want revenge as the French did,

0:40:590:41:03

but there was no question that Germany should get off scot-free.

0:41:030:41:08

While Wilson was planning the future of Europe,

0:41:090:41:13

Americans were losing interest as their boys came home.

0:41:130:41:17

They wanted a peace that wouldn't involve them in Europe.

0:41:170:41:21

It was Lloyd George who fought most strongly for German interests.

0:41:210:41:27

Behind him was a public elated by victory, but eager for revenge.

0:41:270:41:32

The Prime Minister appeared to share their opinion,

0:41:320:41:36

but really had no time for those who wanted to destroy Germany.

0:41:360:41:40

He wanted Germany to remain stable and to recover its strength as a trading partner.

0:41:400:41:47

This was the Germany he feared a land of miserable refugees,

0:41:470:41:52

poverty, homelessness and starvation.

0:41:520:41:55

All conditions likely to provide a perfect breeding ground for the new disease from the east communism.

0:41:550:42:02

In Berlin, his fears had already been realised.

0:42:060:42:11

A communist revolt had broken out there in January.

0:42:110:42:14

While the leaders tried to rouse the masses,

0:42:140:42:18

armed communists occupied key public buildings.

0:42:180:42:21

This challenged Ebert acting president of the German government.

0:42:280:42:34

Army generals brought in ex-soldiers,

0:42:340:42:37

and turned them loose on the communists.

0:42:370:42:41

Berlin briefly became a battlefield.

0:42:410:42:43

Within a week, the revolt was crushed.

0:42:520:42:56

Communist leaders were rounded up...

0:42:560:42:59

and some brutally murdered.

0:42:590:43:02

Post-war politics in Germany were off to a bloody start.

0:43:020:43:07

Meanwhile in Paris, while the German government fought,

0:43:090:43:13

the Allied leaders were arguing over the future of the German people.

0:43:130:43:19

Under their hands, the map of Europe was drawn and re-drawn again.

0:43:230:43:28

After three months of discussion,

0:43:280:43:31

they presented their terms to the Germans.

0:43:310:43:34

Germany lost land in the east, west, and north.

0:43:340:43:38

In the east it was the wide strip of territory

0:43:380:43:42

given to the newly-independent Poland,

0:43:420:43:44

separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

0:43:440:43:48

In the west, France took back the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

0:43:480:43:54

And was also given the right to mine coal in the Saar

0:43:560:44:00

an area placed under League of Nations control for 15 years.

0:44:000:44:05

To protect France,

0:44:060:44:08

Germany was forbidden to station soldiers in the Rhineland

0:44:080:44:13

it was to be occupied by Allied troops until 1935.

0:44:130:44:17

It was not only the loss of territory that Germany resented,

0:44:170:44:22

but also the fact that Czechoslovakia and Poland

0:44:220:44:25

now contained large numbers of Germans.

0:44:250:44:28

To add insult to injury,

0:44:280:44:30

the treaty forbade Austria to unite with Germany.

0:44:300:44:34

Her fortifications were to be destroyed.

0:44:340:44:37

Her army was to be reduced to 100,000 men.

0:44:370:44:42

No airforce.

0:44:420:44:44

No submarines. And to accept blame for the war and to pay reparations.

0:44:440:44:49

In protest, at Scapa Flow, the British naval base,

0:44:490:44:53

the Germans scuttled their fleet

0:44:530:44:55

rather than hand it over to the Allies.

0:44:550:44:59

It was a last defiant gesture.

0:44:590:45:02

Germany had to agree. She was in no position to restart the war.

0:45:020:45:07

So in the high summer of 1919,

0:45:110:45:14

the German delegates were brought to Versailles to sign the treaty.

0:45:140:45:19

It was a compromise peace that satisfied not even one Allied leader,

0:45:190:45:25

and, predictably, the Germans loathed it.

0:45:250:45:28

Inside Germany, the people had been faced with difficult political choices.

0:45:320:45:38

The Communists had failed to wreck the government.

0:45:380:45:42

Other parties suggested a variety of ways of dealing with Germany's problems.

0:45:420:45:47

But when Ebert became president of the new German republic in August 1919,

0:45:500:45:56

he found himself facing other threats.

0:45:560:45:59

There were, for instance, the extreme nationalists,

0:45:590:46:03

who couldn't bring themselves to believe the German army had lost,

0:46:030:46:08

and greeted returning troops as heroes.

0:46:080:46:11

They blamed the government for signing the Armistice, and now the shameful Treaty of Versailles.

0:46:170:46:24

And then there were the Freikorps

0:46:240:46:28

ex-serviceman who'd tasted power fighting the Communists.

0:46:280:46:33

In March 1920, these two forces combined

0:46:360:46:40

to try and take over Berlin.

0:46:400:46:42

The army refused to fire on the Freikorps,

0:46:450:46:48

who were only defeated when the workers of Berlin refused to co-operate with the rebels.

0:46:480:46:54

Political extremism had become part of everyday life.

0:46:540:46:59

And then there was the vital question of reparations.

0:46:590:47:03

In 1921, the Allies were discussing how much Germany should pay.

0:47:030:47:08

Aristide Briand, the French Prime Minister,

0:47:080:47:11

wanted a definite sum to be fixed, and Germany made to pay.

0:47:110:47:16

The rebuilding of war-damaged France was costing a lot of money.

0:47:200:47:24

Why should the French be taxed more heavily to pay for all this,

0:47:280:47:33

when the money could be squeezed out of Germany?

0:47:330:47:37

But the Germans, who'd been summoned to hear the Allied demands,

0:47:430:47:48

protested it would place an intolerable burden on their people.

0:47:480:47:53

They argued that Germany had suffered poverty and unemployment since the war

0:47:530:48:00

and couldn't afford the vast sums demanded by the Allies.

0:48:000:48:04

Germany was in a bitter mood. Reparations would make things worse.

0:48:100:48:16

But these arguments didn't impress the Allies, who fixed the sum at:

0:48:160:48:23

That sum would have to be paid in goods as well as money.

0:48:230:48:28

Most would come from the Ruhr the industrial heart of Germany.

0:48:280:48:33

But at the end of 1922, the Germans fell behind with their payments.

0:48:400:48:45

Raymond Poincare, the French Prime Minister, acted.

0:48:450:48:48

If Germany wouldn't pay in full and on the nail,

0:48:480:48:52

then France would help herself.

0:48:520:48:55

So on 11th January 1923,

0:48:590:49:01

French and Belgian troops entered the Ruhr

0:49:010:49:05

to force the Germans to pay up.

0:49:050:49:08

There was, after Versailles, no German army stop them.

0:49:130:49:17

At first, the French believed they could make the Germans work for them.

0:49:170:49:22

But, suddenly, German politicians and people were united in a common cause

0:49:270:49:33

hatred of the French.

0:49:330:49:35

Huge protest meetings were held all over Germany.

0:49:350:49:39

Workers in the Ruhr refused to co-operate with "the enemy",

0:49:390:49:44

and the German government supported the strikers.

0:49:440:49:47

Germany's industrial heart stopped beating.

0:49:470:49:51

The goods trains that should have been carrying German wealth to France lay idle.

0:49:510:49:58

The French brought in their own workers to get things moving again.

0:49:580:50:05

Their attitude towards the Germans in the Ruhr began to harden.

0:50:110:50:16

They tried to cut the Ruhr off.

0:50:160:50:19

German visitors were searched as if they were entering a foreign land.

0:50:190:50:24

They deported the leaders of the passive resistance,

0:50:300:50:34

German officials, and even the police.

0:50:340:50:37

The result was violence.

0:50:390:50:41

German workers had been killed in riots at Essen in March.

0:50:450:50:50

Their funeral was turned into a vast demonstration of protest.

0:50:500:50:54

Hatred grew.

0:50:540:50:57

Germans began killing French soldiers,

0:50:570:51:00

and at the funeral of one, tempers flared into acts of brutality.

0:51:000:51:05

1923 was disastrous for Germany.

0:51:270:51:29

The great German inflation reached its peak.

0:51:290:51:32

The value of the mark had been dropping,

0:51:320:51:35

so the amount of notes needed to buy things had been increasing.

0:51:350:51:40

Banks became more and more hard pressed to meet the demand for paper money.

0:51:400:51:46

For customers, suitcases replaced wallets.

0:51:460:51:50

To meet this crisis, the government simply printed more money.

0:51:500:51:55

As it lost its value, it cost more and more to pay wages and buy food.

0:51:550:52:00

Hundreds of thousands...

0:52:000:52:03

millions.

0:52:030:52:04

Whatever figure was on the notes meant nothing.

0:52:040:52:08

The German mark was worthless.

0:52:080:52:10

Like a fearful dream, people's life savings were blown away like leaves.

0:52:100:52:15

As Germany slipped towards disaster,

0:52:210:52:24

Gustav Stresemann was appointed Chancellor.

0:52:240:52:28

It was a time of crisis.

0:52:310:52:33

The loss of production in the Ruhr was making inflation worse,

0:52:330:52:37

and Stresemann realised the only way to help the economy was to get production there going again.

0:52:370:52:45

The government also announced that Germany would resume repayment of reparations to get the French out.

0:52:480:52:56

To the nationalists, it looked like a surrender.

0:52:560:53:00

General Ludendorff, who had never accepted Germany's defeat,

0:53:000:53:04

gave his support to Adolf Hitler

0:53:040:53:07

the leader of the new National Socialist party.

0:53:070:53:11

In Munich, the capital of Bavaria,

0:53:110:53:14

they decided to overthrow the government.

0:53:140:53:16

But Hitler's stormtroopers were not yet powerful enough,

0:53:160:53:22

and couldn't get the support of the army or the police.

0:53:220:53:26

Their November uprising failed, and merely ended in confusion

0:53:270:53:32

and 14 deaths.

0:53:320:53:34

Ludendorff and Hitler were put on trial for treason.

0:53:340:53:38

Ludendorff was let off, Hitler was sent to prison,

0:53:380:53:42

where he brooded on his failure in rather comfortable surroundings.

0:53:420:53:48

Meanwhile, inflation was being brought under control.

0:53:490:53:53

The worthless money was destroyed and replaced by a new currency.

0:53:530:53:59

At the same time, a committee under Charles Dawes an American

0:53:590:54:03

was set up by the Allies to scale down reparations,

0:54:030:54:06

so Germany could pay them.

0:54:060:54:09

The German leaders came to London in 1924,

0:54:140:54:18

and agreed to accept the Dawes Plan.

0:54:180:54:21

Stresemann's policy of co-operation began to pay off at that meeting.

0:54:210:54:26

The French agreed to pull out of the Ruhr within a year.

0:54:260:54:30

Their occupation had been unpopular with many allies

0:54:300:54:34

especially Britain, who'd refused to support their attempt to humiliate Germany.

0:54:340:54:40

As industry returned to normal after occupation and inflation, Stresemann triumphed again.

0:54:480:54:55

This time at Locarno in Switzerland.

0:54:550:54:59

Under the Locarno Pact of 1925,

0:55:020:55:04

France, Belgium and Germany agreed to respect frontiers.

0:55:040:55:07

Britain said she'd support any country that was invaded.

0:55:070:55:12

Old enmities seemed to be disappearing,

0:55:150:55:18

and Germany no longer feared a French invasion.

0:55:180:55:22

Finally, at Geneva in September 1926,

0:55:260:55:30

Germany became a full member of the League of Nations.

0:55:300:55:35

Briand, now French Foreign Minister, welcomed Stresemann as an equal.

0:55:380:55:44

It was all very friendly.

0:55:440:55:47

By now, life in Germany appeared to be returning to normal.

0:55:500:55:55

The Germans relaxed.

0:55:590:56:01

The grim aftermath of the war, the humiliation of Versailles,

0:56:090:56:13

the hysteria of 1923,

0:56:130:56:16

all gradually faded beneath the surface of a new prosperity.

0:56:160:56:20

For a nation still paying for a lost war,

0:56:200:56:23

the Germans appeared not to be doing badly.

0:56:230:56:26

They could afford to live it up a little,

0:56:260:56:29

have a good time.

0:56:290:56:32

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